Hungary and the IMF

A Washington wipe-out

THE honeymoon was brief and halting, and now it is over. Tamás Fellegi, Hungary's chief negotiator, met Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, yesterday in Washington DC for talks about financial aid. They do not appear to have gone very well. Here's what Ms Lagarde had to say:

I indicated that, before the Fund can determine when and whether to start negotiations for a Stand-By Arrangement, it will need to see tangible steps that show the authorities' strong commitment to engage on all the policy issues that are relevant to macroeconomic stability. Support of the European authorities and institutions would also be critical for successful discussions of a new program.”

Decoded, this means two things. One, the key phrase is “tangible steps”, which means that no funds will be forthcoming unless Hungary changes its erratic economic policies, such as nationalising pension funds to help plug the budget deficit or imposing crisis taxes on foreign investors.

Two, and perhaps more significant, Hungary will have to meet the European Union's three conditions before it can receive any IMF assistance: changing the recent laws on the central bank; reconsidering or reversing judicial reforms that are forcing hundreds of judges into early retirement and that hand enormous power to a friend of the family of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán; and guaranteeing the independence of the data ombudsman.

Mr Orbán has said that although there may be room for negotiation on some points, the EU has no jurisdiction over judges' retirement ages. Nor were threats to extend the EU's excessive deficit procedure against Hungary justified. The country's budget-deficit target of 2.5% of GDP this year would make it the EU's eighth-best performer, he said.

Meanwhile Zsigmond Járai, a former president of the central bank who also served as finance minister under Mr Orbán, has added to the chorus of criticism of the government's erratic decision-making. After resigning as head of the Budget Council, Mr Járai toldVilággazdaság, a financial daily, that the government needed new economic policies to reassure investors and the IMF.

Still, if the hotseat gets too much for Mr Orbán there may soon be an attractive job vacancy. Hungary's president, Pal Schmitt—dubbed "Mr Rubber-Stamp" by some for his swift approval of any piece of government legislation that reaches his desk—is facing calls to resign after a detailed report in HVG, an economic weekly, alleged that he plagiarised his university dissertation.

HVG's journalists claimed that Mr Schmitt had copied large parts of his dissertation, entitled "Analysis of the Programme of the Modern Olympic Games", from a similar work by Nikolae Georgiev, a Bulgarian sports historian. Mr Schmitt's submitted his work to the College of Physical Education in 1992, and it was graded summa cum laude. Hungarian Spectrum, a liberal blog, has a detailed discussion of the affair.

Mr Schmitt's office strongly denied the accusations, saying the fact that the dissertation's high grade "speaks for itself". The president acknowledged that he had known Mr Georgiev well, and said the two men had co-operated on their research.

Last year a similar scandal brought down Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, the highly regarded German defence minister. The University of Bayreuth stripped him of his doctorate after he admitted substantially (although inadvertent) copying from other sources.

Under normal circumstances Mr Schmitt would probably survive, even if the allegations were proven. Resignations from public life, and the concomitant loss of salary and privileges, are extremely rare.

That is unless one is engineered. Budapest conspiracy theorists are feverishly whispering that moving from the prime ministerial to the presidential office might allow Mr Orbán to dodge any backtracking demanded by Brussels and the subsequent loss of face.

Now that Mr Orbán has finished much of his work rebuilding Hungary in his own image and placing his numerous nominees in office, why not take a break from the grind of daily politics and remodel himself as the father of the nation. So goes the theory, anyway. All weekend whimsy, of course—and doubtless no more likely than an economy minister deciding to declare war on the IMF even as the country asks for a bail-out.

There was no such thing. Before 1997, Hungarian pensions worked exaclty like they do now, the Government simply returned to the system before it was changed by the corrupt MSZP-SZDSZ in 1997 (Adam LeBor himself said MSZP-SZDSZ was corrupt and incompetent many times). The 1997 "reform" by MSZP-SZDSZ privatised 10% of state revenue. This amount before 1997 was paid directly into the Hungarian treasury. But since the elections were coming up in 1998 the MSZP-SZDSZ government decided to give a nice little pre-election gift to the people. The revenue of the state will be given away to private corporations (mostly MSZP-SZDSZ clients) to hold onto and invest, and the difference will be financed by taking out extra debt. This corrupt system was now reversed and the original pre-1997 status restored. The Hungarian state no longer has to take out extra debt to finance this system which set up exclusively for MSZP-SZDSZ election purposes.

"imposing crisis taxes on foreign investors."

This is unfortunately another piece of false information. Crisis taxes were levied not on investors but on certain sectors. For example the banking sector of which the largest company, OTP, is a Hungarian bank. So contrary to the author's claims Hungarian companies were not exempt. Saying they were exempt is pure defamation as it implies illegal discrimination.

It would be very interesting to know what are the real reasons behind such attacks on Hungary. Whoever believes that "guaranteeing the independence of the data ombudsman." which by the way is 100% done currently, are the real issues, must be heavily under the influence.

Not to mention that the current data ombudsman Attila Péterfalvi have said that his office is a lot more independent and free from influence than the previous one.

Some have also theorized that the writing in question was a message sent for Hungary, planted by the unknown interests.

It is also easy to imagine that investors could influence markets in Hungary by planting articles like this in the western press.

Certainly a large number of companies felt offended that after decades of paying no taxes and making windfall profits they were asked to pay some minimal taxes in Hungary. They also have a good reason to plant stories.

So no Hungarian judicial appointments will not be decided on the basis of the number of press attacks. It's not because you cannot make enough attacks, I am sure that you can do quite a large number of them. As seen by the transormation of :"Eastern Approaches" a blog dealing with a group of 20 eastern countries into the "Attack Hungary" blog, evidenced by the almost complete lack of posts dealing with other matters. Also by the recent stance taken by the blog, instead of dealing with "Ex-communist Europe" a better description would be a blog "Supporting ex-communists in Europe". The blog's description on Gordon Bajnai, ex-communist former Prime Minister of the ex-communist MSZP party illustrated this perfectly.

The law states that for persons holding any such high positions to be lawfully removed, under ANY circumstance first a replacement has to be found. Important positions cannot remain unfilled. If the proposed replacement would be a communist judge appointed during the communist dictatorship than he would simply not get the required majority. If non-communist judges are mentioned there are not that many of them who have served long enough. This is understandable as prior to 1989 there was a communist dictatorship. In fact the present nominees like Darák are already the longest serving non-communist judges appointed with the very first wave of non-com appointments in 1991. (First free elections were in 1990).

"reconsidering or reversing judicial reforms that are forcing hundreds of judges into early retirement and that hand enormous power to a friend of the family of the prime minister"

The position is a high judicial appointment, elected by supermajority of the Hungarian Parliament, the highest authority in the Hungarian political system. Lawfully such an appointment cannot be reversed, tabloid claims about friendship notwithstanding. Consider the following: Obama put two liberal judges on the Supreme Court into high judicial positions. It is a similar situation as in Hungary except Obama put them there for LIFE, a term length previously only seen in kingdoms, but OK. Now consider that the press would start to attack one of the appointments the same way Adam LeBor does here. Let's say LeBor and friends make enough attacks that they actually convince Obama that he should "reverse" the appointment. But what can he do? Dismissing a Supreme Court judge because press attacks is unheard of, unless the judge commits a crime even Obama himself has no power to remove said judge. The same situation applies to Hungary. If you want to force a lawfully elected Hungarian judge out of position with press attacks, it will fail, simply because it's not lawfully possible to do. In essence you expect the Hungary to institute unlawful changes the same way of Obama just firing a liberal judge from the Supreme court. The same one he put in there earlier. Time for reality check. Maybe pressure to fire a conservative judge, that could gain some traction if you write enough attack articles. But if Obama fires the liberal judge unlawfully, not only does he prove his regime lawless he also loses all of his own base who would support him.

It is good to see that Abrosz Tisztakosz is holding up journalistic accuracy and pointing out all weak points in critizing articles. But this standard should then be used on him, too. Calling the MSZP an ex-communist party is wrong, since there was a split long time ago when the still-communists walked away in their own party and MSZP was left as a socialist party. Of course, there are many ex-communists left in that party, as are in Fidesz as well. And calling Bajnai an ex-communist Prime Minister is wrong again, with the same arguments you could call even Orbán an ex-communist Prime Minister.

And yes, there was such a thing as nationalising pension funds. Whether the private system was introduced only in 1997, is a completely different question. And that was not done solely as a pre-election present, but similar systems were introduced in several eastern countries, to fulfill EU requirements during negotiations. To say that this system was corrupt is as daring a comment as convicting Schmitt Pál of copying prior real evidence. Where is the evidence for the corruption, why is nobody on trial if it is so obvious? So, kedves Abrosz Tisztakosz, please do not work with two different standards here, asking for highest accuracy from other while sneaking in your own questionable viewpoints without backing them up.
The nationalising itself was done in a very crude and unpleasant way. First of all, people had to specifically state that they wanted to stay in the old system. Who didn't call out, was automatically moved in the state system. And after there stayed obviously too many in the private system, they are now forced by law.

Crisis taxes. Yes, they were put on certain sectors, and there were some Hungarian companies hit, too. But the sectors were chosen in such a way that the taxes have to be paid mainly by foreign companies. This can be good or bad or whatever, but it should not be denied.

And what is the problem with Éva Balogh? First of all, she's surely not the only source of Adam LeBor. Éva has a detailed knowledge of Hungarian politics throughout the last decades and is far from simply translation "left wing media". She's even translating Zsolt Bayer sometimes, but only to warn about this antisemitic plague. The link that Abrosz Tisztakosz provides for information about here is far from being a serious source, it rather discredits him.

Alltogether, you can identify here the typical Fidesz strategy: Don't argue about the main points of a criticism but hit hard on small flaws and inaccuracies in the argumentation or the facts and try to discredit thus the whole point. Gratulations, Abrosz. You're in line with Szijártó, Lázár and Orbán himself.

It is interesting that you should mention that downgrade. The credit rating of several countries were downgraded. I think if anything this illustrates the point perfectly:

While the stupid and incompetent brusselites and eurocrats are working overtime to ensure the super important issue of "guaranteeing the independence of the data ombudsman" in Hungary, they are other issues. Minor issues like the possible collapse of the Euro, instituting necessary economic reforms, handling the greek crisis, or ensuring that countries within the Euro do not violate the 3% deficit rule and similar stuff. (By the way the eurocrat projection for Hungary is 2.5% deficit for this year).

While they distract themselves with looking at the Hungarian data ombudsman (!!) their own countries get downgraded starting with this group of nine downgrades.

"unless Hungary changes its erratic economic policies, such as nationalising pension funds..." I just want to add that this action was and has been a rough attack on private property, although the critics of IMF and EU has an emphasis on the occasionality of this measure, meaning the only issue is that it is not sufficient for future deficit decrease. Although there were changes in this law at the end of the last year, about 2,9 million people are mislead now. On the other hand a lot of people can not repay their mortgages - not a penny of this sum can be used for this purpose - but for state debt yes!.

"Alltogether, you can identify here the typical Fidesz strategy: Don't argue about the main points of a criticism but hit hard on small flaws and inaccuracies in the argumentation or the facts and try to discredit thus the whole point. Gratulations, Abrosz. You're in line with Szijártó, Lázár and Orbán himself."

I have nothing to do with any of them or Fidesz but I admit that I do dislike MSZP-SZDSZ. I do not want them to return to power because I am well aware what they are like. Gyurcsany, Bajnai, and the rest of them could help Hungary really in only one way. If they retire from politics and allow new parties to develop such as LMP. Parties that are not post-communist or corrupt to the core. That could provide a reasonable alternative. The presence of such ghosts from the pasts sucks the air away from any new startups. I see that you just registered this account to attack me personally, among other things, but we should keep this civil.

"Éva has a detailed knowledge of Hungarian politics throughout the last decades"

I wonder how did "Éva" acquire such "detailed" knowledge throughout the last decades, living thousands of miles from Hungary and being a retired pensioner. Her field was history by the way, while she worked not politics. And assuming she did acquire such, specialized knowledge, How did you know of this decade long process undertaken by the 76 year old Éva? I can't imagine many ways of how you know such details unless 1) you made this up to make this "liberal blog" (LeBor's words) appear more legitimate 2) you are Éva or a close associate writing from a newly registered account.

Whatever else is going on, I can see a good deal of brinkmanship coming from the Hungarian side. In fact,Orbán himself is almost a personification of brinkmanship...and whether you like him or not, his solid stance gives great confidence to those who are implementing his policies.If the Hungarian government is getting nervous, they are making a damn good job of hiding it it.
From what is written in the article, Christine Lagarde has indicated that the IMF will not budge from its position: "You want some dosh? Let's see the changes...real changes".
Yet, as far as can be read, seen or heard, there is no sign of significant change on the Hungarian side either. Official facts and figures emanating from the alchemists of the dismal science on the Hungarian side suggest Hungary is not the "basket case" it is assumed to be. But what can be seen up front is not the same as the eddying currents swirling worryingly below. Most foreign observers spend their time in Budapest; go to the suburbs of Budapest; visit the dormitory towns 30-40 kms. from Budapest. On the face of it, things don't look too bad. But go out to the countryside, especially to the east, and the images in some parts become Third Worldishly bleak...How well is this recorded? I cannot say- I don't know. (As an aside: I will never understand why the protagonists of the system change in Hungary seemingly allowed the agriculture -- up to EU standards before the accession -- to go from flourishing to fallow. THEN we needed an Orbán to tell the EU what to do with the CAP. Furthermore, did anybody really imagine there might be a Silicon-Sajó valley from Kazincbarcika to Edelény?).
There is no partisan politics here in saying: Hungary needs help. But the present government wants help without conditions.
So, Johnny, where's the brinkmanship? Readers will remember that just after the introduction of the new constitution the Hungarian foreign plummeted in frightening fashion. Also, there were disappointing results with bond auctions. Yet what was not emphasized too loudly was that the ripples were felt in Prague and Warsaw on their own bond markets. No capsizing...but the boat rocked. This gave a warning that an unstable Hungary could be the preliminary for an unstable region. Washington and the EU needs that like a hole in the head.
Look around at things in the vicinity: Hungary and Slovakia? Not much kissing there...Ukraine? Lock up your daughters. Belarus? I'm not commenting publicy. Russia? Whose in charge? (Hey! By the way, with all this Hungo-bashing....what's going on in Romania and Bulgaria? Everything hunky-dory?)
It's easy to keep saying that Hungary is a small country of 10+ million people but the consequences of its collapse could be far more dangerous. And the big boys who fancy themselves as global policemen have plenty of other headaches: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan.....Oh! No...now Nigeria's looking wobbly....and so on.
I have no evidence that there is an international relations Svengali advising the Hungarian government but amongst the dross there are some sharp minds at work. If they have the stomach for a siege -- I don't like Orbán but I admire his resilience -- the Hungarian government might just get its way. But to do that..and herein lies the rub..it will have improve its powers of explanation vis á vis the Hungarian people. The Hungarian PM says: "We don't need the money. We can stand on our own feet." Viktor, Sir! After twenty or more years at the top, I'm sure you can. But if you go out to the Hungarian people, many of them have had difficulty crawling around on all-fours since the beginning of the transition.

The latest credit rating cut of France, Austria, Italy, Spain and some other countries announced by S&P is going to make Europeans less willing to tolerate Orban’s gimmicks. No more monkey business when the going gets tough.
The smartest thing for Hungary to do is to reconsider its course. Dudes, come to your senses or you will end up like Serbia.

(1) First of all, you are talking about giving money away for free before 1998. My understanding is that the government decided that instead of the state providing this insurance (at the end of the day pension funds are insurance schemes), private companies will provide it. This is pretty far from giving money away, since these companies were then required to pay this money back to the citizenry with interest added. As far as I know, and I am happy to cite studies by economists if you so wish, these funds were much more efficient than the state pension fund.

(2) "The revenue of the state will be given away to private corporations (mostly MSZP-SZDSZ clients) to hold onto and invest, and the difference will be financed by taking out extra debt."
I don't really understand what you mean by the difference will be financed by taking out extra debt. But what is really unclear to me: it might be true that these companies were mostly MSZP-SZDSZ clients (my understanding is that they are mostly foreign, like ING, but OTP which many see as close to Fidesz is heavily involved too), but without any kind of further explanation, let alone proof, this is mere speculation. With this much evidence I can say that any government program started by Fidesz is giving money away to its clients. I don't think we want to go there, I certainly don't.

(3) Furthermore, I am happy to believe that what you say about this corrupt business to be true, as I indeed agree that MSZP and SZDSZ were really corrupt. However, I fail to see why then Fidesz has neither ever made this argument, nor when coming into power only 1 year after this reform happened reversed it. I think that you are sliding into ex post facto explanations again: yes, we can call anything corrupt and anyone stupid, but is that the real reason for the changes Fidesz is implementing?

(4) I don't think the real problem is the return to the state-provided pension funds. Indeed, there might be a good reason to do this. The problem is the way it has been implemented: the government essentially blackmailed the people and lied to them to force them back to the system.

"imposing crisis taxes on foreign investors."

"This is unfortunately another piece of false information. Crisis taxes were levied not on investors but on certain sectors. For example the banking sector of which the largest company, OTP, is a Hungarian bank. So contrary to the author's claims Hungarian companies were not exempt. Saying they were exempt is pure defamation as it implies illegal discrimination."

I am afraid that this is not false information. It might be true that OTP had to pay these taxes too, but for example, among supermarkets, the Hungarian ones (notably CBA) were exempt. Furtheremore, the taxes could have been imposed on any sector, the government was at liberty to pick the sectors with the most foreign involvement. The Economist is further right in pointing out that these are taxes imposed on foreign corporations, because this is exactly what the government communicated. (Of course, in reality, these were taxes imposed on Hungarian consumers.)

10 million people joined Solidarity in the 1980s - it really doesn't mean anything. No shortage of Judases on one side and good Samaritans on the other. Likewise the EPP, what is the Euro Parliament anyway? To continue with the biblical theme: by their fruits you shall know them. And here anyone who cares, can see a huge difference. For the fifth year in a row Tusk has been loath to carry out any sensible reforms, whereas Fidesz is legislatively very active. Tusk has only been active in occupying posts and waging constant war on the opposition, but more importantly his incompetence and ill-will have had some disastrous consequences - his foreign policy re-set with Putin has a direct connection with the Smolensk tragedy, and what has followed can most mildly be called a cover-up. But there are many other outrageous examples. Whereas this paper's criticism of the Orban government really doesn't hold any water, especially when we compare it to the track record of not only his predecessors but also the IMF (whose history goes back six less than glorious decades)

I'm utterly disgusted with Hungarian politics especially with right wing parties.
Orban did nothing but try to destabilise the country while he was in opposition for 8 years. He did not only continuously attack the governments but also the main drivers of the Hungarian economy growth i.e. multinationals, foreign and speculative investors, etc. Nothing was good. He wanted reinvestigate all government contracts and make many invalid. Who benefited from such a move? Not the Hungarians as investors demanded a risk premium because of possible future troubles.
Property tax? No Good. Opening healthcare to the private investors? No good. Symbolic university fee (1998), no good (Now he makes ½ of the students full paid instead)
But he wasted no time to nationalise private superannuation funds to balance his budget.

Let's face it Orban and all of his supporters are COMMUNISTS, they just don't know it.
Orban is doing exactly what Rakosi (Stalinist communist leader in the 1950s) did: consolidating power, getting rid of democratic institutions, saying something and do the opposite, blaming the west for all the troubles and believing that opening to the east is the solution.
Not to mention "communists" in the late 80s sit down with the opposition and agreed to hand over their power to democracy. In 1989 the "communist" parliament passed all bills that had been agreed with groups with no real power to clear the way to a peaceful tradition to democracy. But it was no good for Orban so after 22 years "communists" are still the biggest problem. Let's face it in the previous system it was very hard to achieve anything without joining the party. So many did. The only luck Orban has is that he never worked in his life so he didn't have to.

The sad thing is many Hungarians have no idea how a healthy economy works. They want extreme job security, a lot of state benefits, low retirement age, etc.
My father a big supporter of Jobbik (far right populist party) he is a big anticommunist even though he lives like a leech on the society.
He retired when he was around 53 (now 68), yet he is fully convinced that he worked more than enough. He was a fireman at the airport (not a single fire).
He ran a small family shop after that for several years, never paid tax, yet he hates multinationals which just come to Hungary to take advantage of government subsidises and leave after 5 years (most don't). When I asked him whether he leaves his money in the same bank if another bank offers a better return he said "of course not".
He hates the previous technocrat prime mister because he apparently stole everything to become rich and blames him the vows of some farmers which didn't get paid when one of his investment companies collapsed. When I said bankruptcy and limited liability is an integral part of capitalism he said it doesn't have to be, Hungary could have the same system as Switzerland (apparently not a capitalist country).
And so on.

While studying in a Hungarian university I was shocked how many young Hungarians have extreme nationalistic views. They blamed jews for everything and they wanted border revisions to get back old territories. It is totally agains European norms which moves towards exactly the opposite (demolition of borders). These people very hostile against bordering countries with ethnic Hungarians which is not good for the economy either. According to many studies Hungarians are one of the most unhappy people in the world which makes sense.

The main problem is that many smart Hungarians (actually whoever can) just leave the country to escape all this so the rest just becoming more and more extreme.

If Hungary doesn't like the terms attached to the loans they don't have to accept it. Who said they needed to roll over all bonds? They can just spend less. Their government is big enough and there is plenty of room to cut. No reason for a default. How about living within your means and eat what you produce?

And if they don't like the EU rules they can get out of there too. There are countries doing fine without EU membership.

It is good to see that Abrosz Tisztakosz is holding up journalistic accuracy and pointing out all weak points in critizing articles. But this standard should then be used on him, too. Calling the MSZP an ex-communist party is wrong, since there was a split long time ago when the still-communists walked away in their own party and MSZP was left as a socialist party. Of course, there are many ex-communists left in that party, as are in Fidesz as well. And calling Bajnai an ex-communist Prime Minister is wrong again, with the same arguments you could call even Orbán an ex-communist Prime Minister.

And yes, there was such a thing as nationalising pension funds. Whether the private system was introduced only in 1997, is a completely different question. And that was not done solely as a pre-election present, but similar systems were introduced in several eastern countries, to fulfill EU requirements during negotiations. To say that this system was corrupt is as daring a comment as convicting Schmitt Pál of copying prior real evidence. Where is the evidence for the corruption, why is nobody on trial if it is so obvious? So, kedves Abrosz Tisztakosz, please do not work with two different standards here, asking for highest accuracy from other while sneaking in your own questionable viewpoints without backing them up.
The nationalising itself was done in a very crude and unpleasant way. First of all, people had to specifically state that they wanted to stay in the old system. Who didn't call out, was automatically moved in the state system. And after there stayed obviously too many in the private system, they are now forced by law.

Crisis taxes. Yes, they were put on certain sectors, and there were some Hungarian companies hit, too. But the sectors were chosen in such a way that the taxes have to be paid mainly by foreign companies. This can be good or bad or whatever, but it should not be denied.

And what is the problem with Éva Balogh? First of all, she's surely not the only source of Adam LeBor. Éva has a detailed knowledge of Hungarian politics throughout the last decades and is far from simply translation "left wing media". She's even translating Zsolt Bayer sometimes, but only to warn about this antisemitic plague. The link that Abrosz Tisztakosz provides for information about here is far from being a serious source, it rather discredits him.

Alltogether, you can identify here the typical Fidesz strategy: Don't argue about the main points of a criticism but hit hard on small flaws and inaccuracies in the argumentation or the facts and try to discredit thus the whole point. Gratulations, Abrosz. You're in line with Szijártó, Lázár and Orbán himself.

Indeed, things are rarely black and white, especially when emotions fly. But, as a provocatuer (though I know you will deny it), that's exactly what you're after. Posters like Abrosz Tisztakosz are arguing with facts, whereas you're using provocative words like "spite and hatred". I too am from Poland and therefore not that familiar with the specifics of Hungarian politics, but what The Economist is incessantly trying to communicate (how many blogs regarding Hungary in recent weeks?) and the language of your posts makes your intentions perfectly clear, there are no concrete, convincing arguments, just a very clear message. The devil is in the detail, and the details of eight years of misrule by Orban's predecessors, like four years of Tusk's misrule (including Smolensk, many other explained deaths, closed Shipyards, Afera Hazardowa, a sudden budget deficit and rapid rise in sovereign debt, the divorce of an unreformed ex-communist prosecution from democratic control with already disastrous results, or the current prescriptions catastrophe) amount to a hell of a lot more than what you or this biased paper's correspondents could ever think up (not that it will ever stop you from trying). And believe me, we who live in another ex-communist (or as some sociologists call: port colonial) country, know exactly where you're coming from. We've experienced this type of propaganda under communist rule, and we've experienced it two decades after the supposed collapse of "communism". Even the eager participation of the Western press is nothing new, as our forefathers knew all too well.

It seems that some posters here are hostile toward the IMF conditions. How arrogant! Because you mismanaged your economy through populism and incompetence, then you have resorted to begging for the breadcrumbs from the same institution (IMF) that you have slandered before and now you criticize their requirements.

There is no time for arguments; the IMF can simply refuse providing the financing. Hungary has no bargaining chips whatsoever.

I am afraid you are still dealing with minor details. I am not a big fan of Eva S. Balogh's blog (exactly for the reason that you are pointing out that she is too left-leaning for me), but being a professor at Yale, she is of higher stature then almost any joke of a prosessor at Hungarian universities. In any case, please talk about the substance here: did Schmitt plagiarize or did he not? I think that there is overwhelming evidence that he did. But if you can give us an argument to the contrary, please go ahead.